Cleaning the soul
by Azecreth
Summary: As she prepares for the arrival of Walpurgisnacht, Homura ruminates on the nature of magical girls, and what it means for her.


It was late at night, the moon shining down rays of silver light to illuminate the planet that hung below. In Mitakihara the night life was roaring, with people enjoying the time they had in the bustling, developing city. Downtown was far from inactive as music thumped, people danced, drank, and more.

All of these things Homura knew, but she paid them no attention. She'd seen enough of these moonlit nights and what went on in them to know. No, her concentration at the moment was on a far more pressing, worldly, issue.

She sat kneeling on the floor, clad in her magical girl uniform and with her buckler strapped to her arm. In front of her, spread out, was a pile of guns in silent wait. Pistols, rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, each stolen from the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces, the police, or the Yakuza, and kept in the null space in her buckler until she needed them.

She had already spent most of the night in silent vigil over Madoka, until the girl went off to bed and what dreams may dwell there. Then she had babysat Sayaka until Kyoko showed up before making herself scarce. Much as leaving those two together was bound to cause problems, she needed time to deal with her own affairs.

Now, she could focus on her preparations for the fight against Walpurgisnacht. Her supply of Grief Seeds was sufficient for her needs, for the moment anyway, which led to her being here, holed up in her apartment with the windows shut and the door sealed with a deadbolt. At the moment, she was cleaning her arsenal to ensure that they worked exactly as designed when she needed to use them.

Homura finished reassembling the Heckler & Koch USP with swift, well practiced motions. She then aimed down the sights and pulled the trigger, imagining the gun leaping in her grip as if she were in a fight. A curt nod to herself, and the gun was reloaded before being returned to the interior of her buckler.

The next weapon was an M4 carbine, and she turned to that with the same practiced motions, stripping it down to clean it as well. It was a calming process for her, almost therapeutic, mindless busy work that gave her some time to rest from the more stressful parts of her day and allow her to think and plan ahead. She could focus her attention without distraction or interruption.

As she worked, her mind drifted back to memories of old times, when she had first switched to firearms._ "You two have it easy, you're long range fighters. But this isn't the first time that Homura's nearly blown me up with those bombs of hers."_ After Sayaka's complaints had gotten too much to bear, and the others started backing her up, she'd had no choice but to find an alternative.

It had taken a lot of work to get used to her newly acquired equipment, and even more time to get good at using it, but fortunately Mami was a good teacher when it came to guns and aiming.

_Homura stands on a makeshift shooting range, an assault rifle clutched in a near death grip as she looks down at the targets further away. A few deep breathes and she fires, finger jammed down on the trigger and flinching away as the barrel spats death. The gun jerks in her hands and she looks away, glasses jostled about on her face, until the hammer slams down on an empty magazine._

_Cautiously, she looks back over, and her head falls as she sees the targets standing clean and untouched. Before she can get too worked up over her lack of ability though, she feels warm, strong, confident hands wrap around hers. "It's alright Homura," Mami says with that ever present smile of hers. "We'll just have to try again."_

Now though, years of looping had hardened her, sharpened her, and had made her into an expert that would impress even a JGSDF drill sergeant. And with her time magic, there was nothing that could best her. Even Walpurgisnacht would get it's due, eventually.

Were she in the mood, Homura would have chuckled as she wiped down rifle parts with a clean rag, irony not lost on her.

Soldiers. She, they, all magical girls, were soldiers now, in an invisible war against humanities despair. Unrecognized, unknown, against an enemy that never tired, that never got hungry, that could never be definitively stopped. They struggled and fought until the end for humanities sake and their own. Until the happiness they had been granted by their wish turned sour and struck against them. They were doomed, forgotten warriors, making up the ranks of the enemy just as they had been firm allies once.

She finished cleaning and reassembling the rifle, and gave it the same test she had the pistol, before it too returned to the inside of her buckler to join the others. She moved on then to the next gun as the night passed by.

No, not soldiers in the end. They were weapons, made by the Incubators in their fight against the natural force of entropy, weapons who defied the rules to fight the laws of nature themselves. Their 'masters' didn't care about their fates, so long as they fought, and turned, to renew the cycle again and bring them that much closer to victory.

Even she was like this. Click, boom. Fire and forget. Point at the witch (Or each other) and get out of the way. The magical girls would be their own executioners, fated to kill their fallen comrades until the day came for their turn against the wall, fallen to the bitterness of despair. There wishes were not gifts for agreeing to fight. In the end, they were last requests, bright spots of happiness for condemned souls, for those they deceived into the firing squad, spots that were all too fleeting. 'For every wish there is an equal amount of despair.' Wasn't that the embodiment of karmic destiny brought to life, played out in the tragedy that was magical girls?

Another guns finished, returned to the safe storage of her shield as her mind worked, drifted in directionless thoughts. Perhaps instead they were more equivalent to her explosives, her C4 and pipe bombs, than any simple gun. They're unstable, emotional, a time bomb ticking towards their inevitable destruction at their own hands, with so many other lives caught in the blast.

But of course, why would it be any other way? Stable girls with happy lives would never be inclined to contract or make a wish, and it was the emotional energy Incubators drew on to do their work. So naturally they would want girls with strong emotions like hope, despair, sadness, anger, and who were more easily swayed by the feelings inside them, even if they were least suited to the life they agreed to join.

_Crying, falling tears, a pained cry of "I don't want want this anymore," pink that strikes to the heart, mistaken comfort. _

A hammer struck an empty chamber as Homura finished with another weapon. The pile in front of her has slowly diminished as time has passed by and she has worked through her collection. Everything was going smoothly, and soon she would finish with some time to spare before she turned in for the night.

She paused to consider the cool, familiar weight of metal in her hands before moving on, all too aware of how much she was like the tools she wielded. She was a weapon now, and she embraced that label, that nature. A gun didn't care what it did, didn't feel such pesky things as emotions. It had a purpose, and it fulfilled that purpose to the best of it's abilities, with efficiency and consistent effort.

And like a gun, that was what she had become. Ruthless, cold, calculating, devoted to the mission, the task set for her, and damn the consequences. She is a weapon made to destroy witches, but she is so much more than just that. For while a gun can be used to kill, it can also protect, and she does that now. She has seen through the lies and deception, seen the gruesome truth, and now only serves the Incubators as is absolutely necessary. Now she fights to protect Madoka at all costs, from Walpurgisnacht, from the Incubators, and from whatever other threats may arise.

"_I wish, I wish that I could meet her again. But this time instead of her protecting me, I'll be strong enough to protect her."_

The Incubators made her, forged her, and all other magical girls, for their war. They let her see what others couldn't, gave her powers and abilities that let her heal herself, and made her all the more dangerous. They even stripped her soul from her body, so she could fight all the longer and harder, far beyond the limits of simply human endurance, as Sayaka found out too often in these loops.

_Crazed blue, a flurry of swords, hacking, slashing, nearly maniacal laughter as she exclaims, "He was right! I can't feel the pain, it doesn't hurt!"_

They gave her a purpose, a direction, and she thanked them for it, though it would not stay her hand as she hunted them down to save Madoka from them.

She imagined yet again the weapon she held leaping in her hand, fired bullets smashing into putrid dark flesh...or shattering glittering crystal.

_Bodies fall lifeless, eyes dull, as glass shards hit the ground and gunshots echo in the air. _

If she had a chance, would she go back and not make the contract, live on as a normal girl without the worries that a magical girl combated every day? She considered it for a moment before shaking her head. No. For once in her life she mattered, for once she had the power to make a difference, to look after those few who cared about her. She was stronger now, even if she was a tool designed to kill until she broke. And she could live with that.

_Madoka, I will save you. Some day._ Her purpose, her reason, the one who kept her from falling into despair, the one who dominated every waking thought. Even if she wouldn't become a world destroying witch when she fell, Homura would keep fighting for her sake. This life was fare too cruel ,too hopeless, for such a person as Madoka. In this life, emotions and kindness only accelerated your demise. Sayaka and Mami were testaments to that regard.

"_I'm going to honor her legacy and protect this city, even if I have to fight people like you, who only care about themselves." Defiant proclamation, then eventual fall. Erupting darkness, twisted forms, blue mermaids and crashing orchestra._

No, better that Madoka live on as a human than be subjected to a life of fighting, even in the service of protecting others. She would not allow that path to be followed any more.

The last weapon returned to her shield and she rose, turning on her heels to make for the door, intent on the next stage of preparation that awaited her.

They were soldiers, fighting without recognition. Forgotten, forsaken. They gave their very souls for the world to fight a foe that could never be truly beaten, and their sacrifice was not recorded. But Homura was okay with such a fate for herself. As long as she succeeded, the rest of the world could burn.

They were weapons. Cold, efficient killing machines with minds of their own, too often deceived into this fight before they lashed out at witches and each other, self destruction imminent. They would burn out and fall, or embrace their new nature, however unknowingly. None of them were human anymore, and the rules no longer applied, much like a lot of things. At least Kyoko had realized that, even if none of the others did.

_Angry red confronting self righteous blue. "We're not human you idiot. We've got powers no one else has, and with them we could make this town ours. Why the hell should you fight for them?"_

Homura reached the door and swung it open after unlocking it, her gaze drifting to the night sky that she knew would all too soon be filled with gray storm clouds. Maybe she was as forsaken as the rest, maybe she was a shell of what was once a person, but she still had a target, a mission, and she would fulfill that mission before she lost her usefulness.

She allowed herself a small predatory grin as she departed into the night, door swinging shut behind her. Walpurgisnacht had better watch out. Death was coming for it, and she was the reaper.


End file.
